ashes-of-omelas

[ashes-of-omelas]

High volts through these veins Trouble is our gain Keepin' aces up every sleeve Ready set, ready set l e t ' s g o

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Indie, 18+, based in D&D and Pathfinder. Written by Veerah

#promotes your brand!

[ashes-of-omelas]

The combination of 'unnervingly flawless self-control' with 'occasional tendency to engage in reckless, dangerous, and borderline self-destructive or death-seeking behaviour' in a character is SUCH catnip to me

#ooh this is so how I interpret Lorian #like he's a disciplined army guy who is the sole reason dishes get done & meals get cooked & plants get watered #but he will also be the first in line to like. jump off the tall rock into the lake #or challenge the most dangerous enemy or fight an entire kingdom on his knees to protect his own #and if I bring him to an rp group setting that's too 'safe' like ''what if your character lived in a house and it was nice? :)'' #he doesn't handle it v well

[ashes-of-omelas]

For a moment, they worry that two knocks will become three: a signal that they will not be meeting. But the third knock never comes. This is a welcome, not a rejection. A welcome by the one who made a train car into a lovely home, so curiously and thoughtfully. Rook is cautious, but he is always cautious. Sparrow is deeply curious. Left to his own devices, he would be quite messy in his living spaces, himself.

“Please, come in,” Sparrow calls out. There’s a quiet and hopeful friendliness in his voice that parallels the soft hopefulness of Evergreen’s knocks. “The door is not locked.”

She finds Rook and Sparrow waiting curiously in one of the seating arrangements that has two benches facing a table. Sparrow waves when he sees her, a little shyly, and beckons her over. He’s noticed that she’s large, green, and furry, but he’s a lot more curious than afraid. A dangerous “creature” would not have knocked. Would not be dressed like nobility, would not have made such a captivating little makeshift home.

Rook looks startled to see a strange nonhuman, and such a big one at that. He looks from Evergreen to Sparrow, then doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. Finally, it clicks that a friendly meeting will not happen if he makes a big deal out of this; finally, it clicks that a friendly meeting could even be possible, and he just sits there stiffly, waiting to see what will happen.

There are hardly any signs that the two have been traveling. All of that is hidden inside a tiny pocket dimension in a tiny painting Sparrow is wearing like a large pendant. The painting shows a cozy interior of a house, and the dimension is only as large as the interior of a house. It cost them quite a lot, but it’s been incredibly handy to carry along on journeys, especially since Sparrow has specific needs for pain-free sleep.

“Hello,” Sparrow says. He can be as confident as you’d like, but his surest way to access any of it is through anger, righteous and white-hot anger. Perhaps one is not supposed to be perfectly confident when meeting a new friend. His smile is shy and hopeful. “My name is Sparrow, this is Rook, my brother. We are... well, we are humans. I don’t think I’ve seen your kind of person before. What’s your name? It is good to meet you.”

@ashes-of-omelas

A machine faster than a steed was a fable of the Old World, one that she’d never thought she would see outside of a display. Once as a child did Evergreen’s fingers brush over the well-worn leather seats at a fair exhibition, her imagination filled with crowds and soot and noise. She could not comprehend what it meant to leave home for so many hours every day. The locomotive belonged to those creatures of simple origin, the ones who clamored in packs by the thousands and traveled to distant industries in service to The Great One.

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#alabonshay #gives them a camper on a pendant tbh

[ashes-of-omelas]

octocracy​:

Octavio chuckles, almost bashfully, despite the compliments certainly not being directed at him. It was still a pleasant sound to his ears, much more pleasant than the knee-jerk disgust some humans had for things that were boneless and slimy. Maybe he’d actually show Lothric his selfies, some time. That didn’t seem overly friendly– after all, showing off his default form was something he did all the time before he got here. As opposed to hanging out with someone at the zoo, which was a level of intimacy he experienced… almost never.

“Yeah, the siphon is a totally different structure than a fish’s got. It’s a breathing tube, but it’s also for swimming, and… you know, other stuff.” He wasn’t anywhere close to a biology expert, but it’s hard not to know about the anatomy of something that has similar parts in similar places. “And I’m gonna guess he doesn’t mind us. It’s probably good for him to see all the new faces– captive octopuses need a lot of enrichment like that. That’s why he’s got the toys.”

There’s a warmth seeping into his voice as he watched. While the wild animal still was vastly different from an actual octarian, it’s still hard not to be reminded of a little kid when he looks at it. In the way it moves and the way it looks our at the visitors, he could swear there was a similar prying curiosity inside.

Lorian decides he had better not be too much of a buzzkill, even if he doesn’t really find animals “cute” or pay attention to them much. It’s clear that Lothric and Octavio are getting something out of this.

“Do they have these in your world, then?” Lothric asks, a little carefully, still watching the little creature. “His arms look a lot like your hair.” Lorian’s mouth twitches a little. He’s better at knowing what’s appropriate to say, and that seemed a little blunt to him, especially to say both of those things together. Lothric tries to explain himself to Lorian in the seconds it takes to get a reply from Octavio, more in flashes of emotion than specific language: Yes, it’s an awkward question, and yes, it could be personal! But I just don’t know the right way to ask it, if there is one! And he wanted to look at it with us; clearly, showing it to us was important! If he didn’t want to talk about it, he might have strongly encouraged that we see other animals and hoped that we never found this one. I think your rules will tell us how to be proper. I would like to try and make a connection.

Lorian can accept this. He does sort of get that from Octavio, a sort of wistful openness to companionship, and no sign of a particular strategy for getting there in a hurry. Hell, he doesn’t always know how to do that, himself. Even if Lothric’s questions do have a certain little brother energy to them, Lothric is surely not the worst little brother one could have.

#octocracy #octavio can i ask you a personal question? are you an octopus

[ashes-of-omelas]

@alabonshay

As magic constructs who came from a world within an enchanted painting, Rook and Sparrow find it easier than most to wriggle into magic pocket dimensions. But usually it happens intentionally. It's hard to say how they came to be passengers on the Train. They woke up there one morning (if such a thing as morning exists here), and they've been trying to make sense of their situation ever since.

They have never seen a train before, but they could accept that the space, with its comfortable seating and trundling wheels, must be a form of transportation. There is no question that magic gets mixed up in reality, here: every time the train stops, the outside world is different. The brothers' painting world had an architect, and they can't help but wonder if the train and its strange stops are here thanks to design more than accident. But if anybody created the train and the world it inhabits (or perhaps creates along the way), that entity is unreachable.

A monotone announcer's voice tells them that they are a number of stops away from a special stop, where a wish can be granted. It seems that that's their best bet for getting home, but they don't trust the monotone voice or the train well enough to be content to do nothing as they wait. If they have been caught like a bug in a net, the one holding the net is the last person or entity they should trust. Rather than entirely put their fate in the hands of a hint of a wish, they have determined to travel through the train until they reach the front of it. They may be able to question whoever is driving or piloting it and perhaps convince that person or entity to let them go.

As they make progress forward, they find another absurdity to their situation: the train cars seem to stretch on to infinity. The discovery is disheartening, but they don't have many other options for looking for exits. If they get off at a stop and focus their exploring efforts there, they might give up their chance to interact with the train (and its promise of wishes) at all. Worse, they can't be sure if the stops continue to exist once the train leaves the area. If this dimension had an architect, that architect seems to have designed a world to fit a train, rather than the other way around.

So they keep traveling through the cars. And one day, they find that they're not alone. There's evidence that another person has been using a car as a living space.

They want to meet the other person, but they don't want to startle them. They write a friendly note and take a seat one car back, to wait. The note reads:

Hello. Our names are Sparrow and Rook. We are trapped on this contraption like you are. We would like to meet you, and perhaps we can work together. If that's not okay, we understand. Come and find us in the car that comes before this one. Knock three times on the door if you do not want to meet. We will leave you alone and pass through next time you are out foraging.

Regards,

Sparrow and Rook

#alabonshay #let's gooo!!!!

[ashes-of-omelas]

thinking about strong (brittle) vs strong (resilient) characters

the first type seem unbreakable because of the sheer amount of shit they withstand without flinching. they stand tall, still smiling, shrugging off every setback in a way their peers can’t help but admire. they’re the last person anyone expects to fold, and it will take a storm of epic proportions to break them, but once they hit that point, there’s no going back. they snap, and that vulnerable emotional core now lays exposed to the elements, stripped of the thick armor that previously protected it

the second type seem weaker on the surface. every storm that rolls in pushes them down, bows them almost to the ground. they’re not stoic. they’re not unflinching. they’ll sacrifice dignity and appearances to get by, and compromise is accepted as a facet of survival. in some ways it may even seem like life has specifically set them up to be knocked down at every turn. but each time the storm passes, they rise back up again with a resilience and flexibility that allows them to bend so much farther without completely breaking

#ooooohh #Lorian is strong (brittle) and Lothric is strong (resilient) for sure #and strong (brittle) is weak to what strong (resilient) is well-adapted to handle (and vice versa) #and they help each other to become strong (ultimate)

[ashes-of-omelas]

One of the big technological appliances in the twins’ home broke down, and a technician will have to come inside and fix it. It was terrible timing for this to happen so soon after they arrived. Lothric knows what it is to be hunted, and it’s all still very fresh in his mind. He doesn’t feel safe leaving the house, and he doesn’t feel safe letting strangers into it while he’s home.

The people here love their appliances, and they were appalled at his suggestion to do without for a while and get it fixed... sometime later, perhaps never, it’s not a big deal. When he asked if he could stay at the familiar halfway house in Mosslike for the day of the repair, they agreed quickly, and going with that seemed like less of a headache than trying to properly explain that he’s lived his entire life without an automatic washing-something-or-other and somehow managed to survive.

Lorian doesn’t like sitting around, and he soon left to explore the city. Lothric accepted this, and he prepared to spend the next few hours alone. But then Lorian went past a zoo, and Lothric was so curious that Lorian shrugged and went in to check it out. And then their friend and ally the DJ arrived, and he said he had something to do anyway and Lorian would have plenty of time to go back for Lothric so they could all visit later.

Lothric is much less self-assured here, exposed and vulnerable to the masses and their pitchforks if they should ever get the idea to turn on him. It’s an irrational fear for a populace with no conceivable motive to hurt him, but the fear was real, once, and he is adapted to it like the little octopus in the tank is adapted to life in saltwater. He doesn’t want Octavio to lose respect for him, but at the same time they probably shouldn’t be creating an alliance if Octavio’s respect would be that easy to lose.

“We are peeking into his living room,” Lothric observes, watching the little animal with an automatic affection that Lorian will always find a little strange and over-emotional. “Oh, look at him breathing at the sides of his head... his gills are so unlike those of a fish. He looks strong and fragile all at once, sometimes bulky, sometimes wispy and delicate. Hello little friend... do not mind us, your admirers!”

@ashes-of-omelas

Octavio paces the aquarium exhibit of the Mosslike zoo with mild interest. It was much more pleasant than having to deal with the veterinarians. For all that pestering about how going to the doctor was important, it felt like he spent the whole time having to explain why their test results were weird, and didn’t learn a single new thing about his own health. Still, he figured if he came all the way, he should at least make a day out of it.

“Hey dude, check it!” He points at one animal, sectioned off into its own tank and clutching a simple puzzle box in its many arms. “That’s our cousin.”

#octocracy #🐙

[ashes-of-omelas]

Michał Mroczka (b.1984) - Pillow for the Sleeper. 2022. Acrylic on canvas.

#Ashes of Omelas || Dark Souls || Lothric || Aesthetic

[ashes-of-omelas]

hate how most of my problems are abstract or systematic i wanna fight more of them with a sword

#Ashes of Omelas || Dark Souls || Lorian || Characterization

[ashes-of-omelas]

#Ashes of Omelas || Dark Souls || Lothric || Characterization

[ashes-of-omelas]

muses who fight tooth and nail to protect others, but don’t think they’re worth saving.  muses who would look after someone else who was injured/sick, but don’t believe they deserve to be cared for.  muses who would give their lives for those they love… but honestly can’t fathom someone doing the same for them.  muses who don’t know their worth.  muses who view themselves as monstrous or unforgivable. muses with a dark past and trauma, which clouds their judgement and their view of their own self-worth. muses seeking redemption they don’t even believe they deserve.   rb if u agree

#Ashes of Omelas || Dark Souls || Lorian || Characterization #hhhhhh!!

[ashes-of-omelas]

This is an rp blog for a Dark Souls character named Lothric, who I developed so much that he also became an OC named Sparrow. I will write threads here for both versions of the character.

To me, Dark Souls is like how Harry Potter is to some people. It has some deeply memorable characters and worldbuilding, but the ableism and transphobia kick me out of the story & make it hard for me to appreciate it wholeheartedly. I don’t want to track negativity all over someone’s comfort media, and I’m just not going to sweep my critical views under the rug. So I will be selective with Dark Souls threads.

Links:  About || Rules || Verses || Ask (About & Verses pages coming soon!)

[ashes-of-omelas]

#Ashes of Omelas || Dark Souls || Lothric || Characterization

[ashes-of-omelas]

#Ashes of Omelas || Dark Souls || Lothric || Characterization